Knowledge and practice of rights ‘in’ and ‘through’ the inviolable spaces of learning

Third of a series of four postings probing the international legal protection of the right to education within the converging contexts of emergencies, threats to international peace and security and armed conflict.

Of course it is the egregious acts of violence that capture attention—the bodily hurt and harm. Yet some attacks on spaces of learning may be viewed as less about incursions of spatial and bodily inviolability and more about incursions of inner inviolability: the creative (thinking, feeling) embodied self. The attack is targeted. And the target of the attack is education itself: the containment of thought part of the targeted hurt and harm. Or more accurately, the containment of thought by distinction—on the basis of protected aspects of our innermost identity. In other words it is specific (and age-old) form of violence: gender, race, or belief based or a composite amalgam. It, therefore, violates the rights to bodily integrity and security of the person among others, in conjunction with the right to non-discrimination, individually and as constituent elements of rights ‘in’ and ‘through’ education.

Though some attacks are targeted, all attacks impact on inner inviolability, the rights ‘in’ and ‘through’ education. Relatively the broader impact is untold. Incursions of spaces of learning (or threats thereof) necessarily impact on the continuation of learning within the spaces; they may preclude access to the space into the future. Thus they have an understated effect on the right ‘to’ education and thereforethe rights ‘in’ and ‘through’ education. If there is no recovery response or alternative (as required by treaty bodies), part of the hurt and harm—intended or not—is the containment of thought. And, this necessarily creates vulnerability: social, economic and cultural. Of these, the attention is often on future economic independence and productivity. Lesser noted is the impact on civil and political rights; it may preclude knowledge and practice of rights as a constituent element of rights ‘in’ and ‘through’ learning. And this has vulnerabilities effects beyond education: lessening the possibility of self and collective protection including from egregious violations of international law—present and future.

Ensuring knowledge and practice of rights ‘in’ education therefore dignifies. And, in doing so, it may have protective effects ‘through’ education, including for escalating conduced compliance with international human rights and humanitarian law.* Seen in this way, it creates a meta-juridical imperative to act to protect each dimension (of the multidimensional) right to education. And this begins by escalating conduced compliance with the international legal obligations to protect the spaces of learning, as crystallised in the Safe Schools Declaration and associated Guidelines (including through international assistance obligations).

*If the obligation to ensure knowledge and practice rights in education is understated, the obligation to make humanitarian rules known is more so. It is a customary and treaty rule of both non/international armed conflict and of continuing applicability in peacetime. The obligation is broad in scope and deep in content: it extends (as Yves Sandoz notes) to even the youngest children; and requires the study of humanitarian rules. Or in other words, it requires reflection upon, and engagement with, the law. And this necessarily includes its human rights complement: the content and scope of complementary international human rights obligations. A premise underlying the obligation, as Naz Modirzadeh persuasively argues ‘is that we must all know more in order to demand more.’